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7.4.5 Night Vision Setup
At night, with the infra-red lights, the cameras simply show reflected light. If the camera is pointed at empty
space (not pointed at trees, grass, or other objects), the night time picture will be entirely black. The infra-
red lights seem to project out roughly 50 feet - of course at that distance at night it will be difficult to pick
out many details about the object that is recorded.
At night, flies attracted via the camera infra-red lights will cause false alarms! For avoiding numerous false
alarms, we recommend you installing an external LED emitter around the camera and turn off the camera IR
LED control, then the flies will not be attracted the camera LED at night. If there is ambient lighting (street
lights, overhead security light, infra-red light provided by other cameras or external IR emitter) it is possible
to extend the night time visible area.
1.
The”
Infrared LED control
--“Auto” switches on the IR LEDs automatically when there isn’t enough light to
produce a good quality image. “On” turns the IR LEDs on permanently and ignores the light level in the
room (resulting in a Black & White mode). When “Off” is selected the IR LEDs are kept in the off state
even if the light level of the room is too dark to produce a good quality image. This may be useful if the
LEDs are reflecting off a nearby surface and obstructing your view.
Please note: “Auto” uses the light sensor on the front of the camera to check ambient light level to turn
on the IR LEDs at night. The sensor is below the lens.
2.
“Black & White Mode”--
“Auto” switches the video from color to monochrome when the IR LEDs are
turned on. “On” switches the video to monochrome irrelevant of the status of the IR LEDs. “Off” forces
the camera to stay in color mode even when the IR LEDs are on. The default setting is “Auto” so that you
have the highest sensitivity at night. In many environments you have better picture quality as well as
color night vision with ambient light if you set this setting to “Off”, so you may want to try it.
3.
“Moonlight mode”--
Turns Moonlight mode on or off or set it to automatic. The Moonlight feature
superimposes frames in order to brighten the image being viewed. This is also known as frame integration.
In “Auto” the camera uses the front Light Level Sensor to detect the amount of light available to the
camera. Should the light level below, the camera would automatically turn this feature on.
Moonlight
mode
boosts the available light by reducing the frame rate to 7.5 fps. When “Moonlight model” is “auto”
or “On”, the cameras produce gorgeous night vision, especially the outdoor serials.
